The march to financial freedom

Ali-OK

Progress has been made with the GP :j but with the cost of another prescription - that's 4 at £7.85 each this year already :eek:

So - the diagnosis is...(drum roll ) menopause! :rotfl:

A different HRT prescribed to last year and fingers crossed this sorts me out and then DS and the dogs can come out of hiding :rotfl:

Blood test results were all negative, so process of elimination for time being points to menopause and if any of the symptoms are still present then to go back to GP and investigate further.

Blood pressure was 106/60, which he's happy with and thinks this mornings one combined with the hotness is normal menopause BP spikes.

Happy bunny now so whilst waiting for prescription in Sburys, ended up wandering around the store and found a few Yellow Sticker items on the shelves in the meat department:

TTD Beef Joint £8.29 (down from £12.35)
TTD Free Range Chicken £6.09 (down from £9.11)
Gressingham Duck Crown £5.30 (down from £8.00)
Braising steak £3.00 (down from £4.50)
Big lamb steaks £3.00 (down from £4.50)

And treated myself to some body spray at 90p (Wilkos seem to have stopped their old 58p one) and a big treat - ready to eat sliced runner beans at £1.50. These are my fave veg.

So a big spend of £28.08 and had a double points voucher for joining Easyjet Fly. All the meat has gone in the freezer and I've now overspent on the month's food budget, but it will last us a good while and we'll have a good few meals out of each bit, so from that perspective I think I've done ok. I could have also got YS pork, but feel a bit porked out and we've got quite a bit in the freezer still of that.

Right, best I do dinner now and hope everyone has had a good day.

beanielou

The joys of our age :eek: :rotfl:

beanielou

http://www.ladycare-uk.com/tellafriend.php

Scroll down slightly to the seven dwarfs :rotfl:

Ali-OK

Soooo true!!!

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

mizmir

Sympathies! Hope the change in HRT does the trick - not fun. But at least nothing more sinister going on! Well done on your yellow stickers too. Yikes to the prescription charges though - one advantage to living in Wales - no prescription charges.

beanielou

No prescription charges either.
I used to have a prepayment certificate.

Ali-OK

In hindsight, a 3 month Prepayment Card would have been cheaper, but wasn't to know this was going to happen. Can only forecast a £7.85 charge every 3 months now - as that's the max the GP will prescribe in one go and of course, it's chargeable, unlike the contraceptive pill which is free.

The upside is it's only one charge - alot of HRTs are 2 pills and 2 charges. I did ask that before he prescribed it

Miz, definitely relieved it's nothing worse. The high BP worried me this morning so I'm glad I managed to see my GP today.

Beanie - that ladycare item looks very interesting. Might look further into it as an alternative if this HRT doesn't work well or I can't stay on it for too long.

I didn't get my financials down for today, so scores on the doors

- bank account checked - monthly use CC payment gone out
- freepostcodelottery checked - must be my turn soon! Pretty please!
- Nectar adpoints - all guns blazing here with 64 pts including a double bonus
- Nectar Canvass - I had a survey where they sent me the product to test - couldn't really say anything before (well still can't really), but meant I was guaranteed another survey after testing - done that tonight for 60 pts
- Nectar card - still £36.42 but should see a good jump from the SB shop and survey today, plus 3 weeks adpoints to go on
- Inbox Pounds - up to £2.63
- Qmee - 15p today, 89p to date (3 days)

DS has ordered a replacement item for the one that got lost as well as another item too, so he's paid me the £21 for the latter. I'm going to try and hold that back to pay off CC2 and meet the purchase through my monthly use CC next month. Tends to work quite well for me as is already taken out of next months' budget so I don't miss it.

- Change of gas supplier emailed off (after all those printing and scanning problems), got a changeover date of 10th March, which means current supplier should honour my current deal rate up until I leave and account will owe me some credit too.

The spends then:
- £40 Osteopath
- £7.85 Prescription
- £28.08 SB YS bonanza

No advance on decorating and realising March is only around the corner, when hopefully I can do the first car boot sale of the season. Need to start getting some chunks of money to throw at the debt.

Ali-OK

Before I forget, booked the runaround car in for it's 2 year service today for 11th March. It's on a plan, so shouldn't be anything extra to pay on the day.

But I did mention that I'd not been credited any Nectar points for
1) buying the car
2) last year's servicing
3) a dealer fitted manufacturer option after I bought it

and after a bit of discussion in the background, I've been asked to take my receipts in and they'll 'see what they can do' when I take it in for the service :j

Could be lots (here's hoping anyway)

beanielou

I'm hoping for postcode lottery too

Ali-OK

Evening diaryland!

I've taken it easy today and started the HRT, decorating will have to wait a bit longer. Managed to get all the March cards written and DS did his too, presents wrapped, 2 ready for posting (in recycled jiffy bags) and bought an online gift card. Just flowers to order for Mothers Day which is end of March, so plenty of time to sort that and need to work out how many more stamps to buy too. All 2nd class as I shall be super-organised again :D

Caught up with work emails and confirmed I'm not working tomorrow but I am on Friday. I may have a piece of work to book into next week too which would be great, yet to be confirmed though.

New gas supplier confirmed receipt of signed switching form - yay! Need to check what I need to email off in order to claim the £17 cashback next.

Financials then:
- bank account checked
- freepostcodelottery checked - you can guess the answer :rotfl:
- Nectar adpoints - found a few more ads spread across the bar at the bottom and now up to 78 pts
- Nectar card - whoop, whoop a nice rise to £37.98
- Inbox Pounds - a steady increase to £3.29 today
- Qmee - Nil today

Spends:

Was doing well as a NSD up until 6pm tonight when the last bulb out of 6 in the lounge blew and no spares :eek: So popped to Morrisons who didn't have what I needed...candle light then, which I was secretly rubbing my hands at less electric being used DS not quite so as he was doing one of his models.

Of course, that time of night the Yellow Stickers were calling me and I might just have bought:
- large ham and pineapple pizza £1.19 (reduced from £2.75)
- 4 pack pears 25p (reduced from £1.99)
- 2 large organic chicken legs £1.55 (reduced from £3.55)
- loaf of Hovis Granary - 15p (reduced from 79p)
- pile of fresh chopped ham and pork from deli - 29p (reduced from 70p)

Spent £3.73 and got a funny look from the woman infront of me in the queue. She really did turn her nose up, but at least I wasn't the one with a £26 bill for half a dozen bits or using a CC to pay.

So we are well stocked food wise and only need a few veg bits, milk and some packed lunch stocks in the shop tomorrow at Ald!

DS has scavenged the cupboards being half term - he's now happily eating brown bread (wouldn't touch it if there was white available) and snacks have been - drum roll - using up the 5 different half open boxes of cereals from his previous fads. :rotfl: Much better for him than biscuits, as there are none Similarly there is no diet coke left (1 bottle per week max of Ald!'s 42p version) and he started on the leftover squash today. He's getting into better habits with my frugal shopping ways. :j

For dinner tonight, I got a little creative with the chicken drumsticks and savoury rice as it needed a sauce. I found a Chicken chasseur packet mix in the cupboard, so took that and then added some BBQ sauce and cooked it in the oven. It was pretty good with some onion and mushrooms for me added (DS doesn't like either) and extra carrot, peas and sweetcorn in the rice. He approved, so I can use that one in the menu plan again

Still need to buy lightbulbs, prefer to do that online as much cheaper for the fit/style we need. Oh well, another night or 2 by candlelight then

Hope everyone has had a good day.